Toyota Australia March 2007 Sale Statistics

Toyota Australia sold 21,000 in March, (ahead of Holden’s 13,454 and Ford’s 10,074). Toyota’s senior executive director of sales and marketing, David Buttner, said sales of Aurion V6 were particularly pleasing – exceeding 2000 for the first time in one month.

“The success of Aurion is further evidence that the large six-cylinder market has stabilised, this is great news for the local manufacturing industry, its supplier base and customers. People are voting for the power, economy and value represented by the award-winning Aurion. Mr Buttner said.

“At the same time, our other locally produced car – four-cylinder Camry – continues as the dominant seller in the medium-car market. The March result shows Toyota is well on track for a fourth consecutive year of sales above 200,000.”

Toyota’s March industry record of 21,390 sales was more than 2700 or 14.7 per cent ahead of the previous March record set by Toyota last year. The company’s growth was even stronger than the overall industry increase of 8.3 per cent, giving Toyota a market share of 22.7 per cent against its competitors Holden (14.3 per cent) and Ford (10.7 per cent).

The combined sales total of Toyota’s locally manufactured cars was more than 4600 cars in March (4611) 64.7 per cent higher than the same month last year (2798). The Aurion V6 large car recorded 2037 sales in only its fifth month in the market.

Four-cylinder Camry, also delivered from the company’s Altona plant in Melbourne, maintained its grip on the medium-car market with 2574 sales. For the first three months of 2007, domestic sales of the two locally manufactured cars exceeded 11,400 (11,432) – an overall domestic sales increase of 51.2 per cent over the same period in 2006 (7562 cars).

HiLux set another an all-time record with 4104 sales – promoting it into second place on Australia’s top-selling vehicle chart. It was one of five Toyota vehicles among the top 10 best-selling vehicles – along with Corolla third (4029 sales), Yaris sixth (2702), Camry seventh (2574) and Aurion ninth (2037).

March was an all-time record for the Prius petrol/electric hybrid as well, which sold more than 300 for the first time (304), reflecting increased supply for Australia. Toyota retains its grip on the triple crown – number one in sales of passenger cars, commercial vehicles and overall. However the Holden VE Commodore is the outright best selling car.

Its March-on-March passenger-car sales were up 8.6 per cent, giving Toyota its biggest one-month lead in this segment – 2252 cars ahead of its nearest rival Holden. Toyota also set a first-quarter industry record with 56,230 sales – 14.3 per cent ahead of last year and a further 12.5 per cent over 2005.

Toyota is the only one of the big three car manufacturers (Ford & Holden being the other two) to post a sales increase this year. Its overall sales lead over the nearest rival has grown to a record of almost 18,500 compared with just under 11,000 at the same stage last year.